Manchester center, vermont in 2009. Its wonderful for us to be here in a state where we feel the spirit of woodstock still lives, and we know there is a woodstock here too. I have to say, i kind of fit all three of the criteria you mentioned about people interested in the book. I was definitely interested in the topic from a historical, musical perspective for a long time. I wish i had been there, but i was 12 years old, living in North Carolina the time, so didnt get to go. Now, i feel like i was there because of getting to spend so much time with michael and working on the book and all the incredible people that weve i have gotten to meet that worked on woodstock with michael, whose stories are also part of the book. Tonight, what we are going to do is talk a little bit amongst ourselves for you guys to listen in. Be thinking of questions because we will have time for questions at the end, after we chat for a little while. Im going to go through a little bit of back story with michael because, like many people who were not at the festival, my impressions of woodstock were pretty much based on the film, the Michael Wadleigh film that came out in march of 1970. And come to find out when michael and i started working together on the real story i found out there was a whole lot more to it than what we got to see in that wonderful film. So were going to talk about that. I have one question before we start. Is there anybody here who was at woodstock . All right. Cool. I feel better already. [laughter] so, now, some people dont realize, but woodstock was actually not michaels very first festival that he put on. He was living in brooklyn and in new york city and ended spending time in the west village and getting involved in the music scene and becoming a fan and then found his way down to Coconut Grove, florida in 1966. So, michael, why dont you tell us a little bit about what the scene was like there, what took you there . I guess, you know, growing up i never really had a clear understanding of where i wanted to go with my life, and that is probably still true. [laughter] i was at nyu. I had been there for a couple years, and i remember sitting in Washington Square park, looking over at the school, and thinking, i am done. And so the next logical step, i thought, was to go to Coconut Grove and open a head shop, which is what i did. And it was it was the start of a really great adventure for me. The grove was a sleepy artist town in southern florida. It is the only tropical part of florida, and it is full of artists and musicians and it was in those days a very lazy town. A dog could sleep in the middle of the road for most of the day without getting disturbed with that kind of place. And so i opened the head shop and sort of changed all of that. [laughter] and in the process i started doing concerts at local parks with small groups, just local talent, parts of the beatnik movement. Tat one point, i came up with this brilliant thought because we were into loosening the drug laws in a way, in terms of use of marijuana in specific. I had met some of the local Indian Tribes and discovered, to my chagrin, that you could smoke marijuana on an indian reservation without getting arrested. Perhaps that was a place for us to hold our next event. [laughter] and so we spent some time talking with the indians and they kind of liked the idea too. For some reason, i guess they declined at some point. I became friends with a guy named ric obarry, who was the you probably remember flipper the dolphin. Flipper was a very popular childrens show in the early 1960s. Ric was the guy who trained the dolphins that played flipper. Interesting side story, ric at one point, when one of the dolphins started committing suicide, he realized he should not be responsible for starting this industry that he was responsible for, which was capturing dolphins and putting them in tanks and making them do tricks, and became an activist for freeing them around the world. He has been doing that for 40 years, and this summer there is a movie called the cove coming out in about a week and a half. It is an amazing, amazing movie. I encourage everybody to see it. It is about ric and his story and what he is doing today. It is exciting. It is just a wonderful film. Anyway, so ric and i decided, because we were both fans of the monterey pop festival, that we would put Something Like monterey together, and, with a couple of other people, in particular a guy named marshall brevetz, put the money together. Marshall had a club called the blues image, which was the Big Rock Club in miami, and he also had some partners with squashed noses and [laughter] so that is where his financing was coming from. So marshall had one condition, which was we had to do the show in three weeks. There began my career as a festival producer. I flew to new york and met with an agent and we managed to put together a pretty interesting show. Jimi hendrix was the headliner. But it went from chuck berry to John Lee Hooker to local jazz musicians from the grove to the crazy world of arthur brown. Its a pretty eclectic show. And we hired gulf street park to do it. It was a real lesson in improvisation for me. Improvisation is probably sort of how i get through life, frankly. I dont know a lot about anything in particular, but i can figure it out as i go along, it seems. So we did this show and the first day was absolutely amazing. We had had a long drought in miami that spring. Actually, it was getting kind of dangerous, but we decided to forgo the rain insurance because there was no chance in the world it was going to rain. [laughter] i mean, you know, wed been 60 days without a drop. So, you know, saturday came along and it was perfect. It was blue skies and dry as a bone. And sunday morning we read that they had seeded the clouds over the everglades to end the drought and the skies opened up and that was my First Experience with heavy rains. [laughter] so ric and i tried to recoup our losses for about a month. We had planned two additional concerts, i think ravi shankar and steppenwolf. Of course, the rain never stopped. We lost the rest of our money. And so i decided miami was over for me and headed north back toward new york. I remembered woodstock because my parents had taken my sister and i on lots of trips to canada when we were kids. She liked to stop and look at the Art Galleries on the way back. I knew the town somewhat, and it was very famous for its musician residents, particularly bob dylan and the band and later janis joplin but at the time Paul Butterfield and van morrison i think was living there then. In any case, i decided to move to woodstock, which is what i did, and take it to the next stop. Ok. So, you know, woodstock did have this history really going back to the early 1900s of being an Arts Community that attracted not only independent freethinkers but musicians and artists and seemed like the Perfect Place for michael to be, having these interests and being in Coconut Grove. And he did, of course, end up hanging out on the scene, meeting people, but also participating in some events. Michael, why dont you tell them a little bit about the sound outs there that also kind of added to your idea of an outdoor festival after your miami experience . Sure. There was a woman named pam who was a local realtor and owned a farm just outside of woodstock. Every weekend, she ran these sound outs, which were concerts out on her farm. We had a stage that was six inches off the ground. It was very lowkey and very sort of casual and informal, but an amazing way to see music. I mean, shed get a crowd of 300 or 400 people. I think it was 2 or 3 to get in. People would come and camp over the weekend if they wanted to, or theyd come and go from town. Most of the music was local, but local was van morrison and it was it was guys from the van and it was Paul Butterfield and it was the holy modal rounders and ellen mcilwaine. It was an amazing array of talent. And so comfortable and it felt so natural to be in that environment. Whether you spent the night or not, it kind of occurred to me then that this was really the best way ive ever experienced to see music. So i started to think about a series of concerts based on that but with larger crowds, and somewhere along the line that summer, i started to manage a band called the train. I say manage. I mean, who knew what management was . [laughter] my friend don keider was in the band, said, would you manage us . I said, sure. And i became a manager. [laughter] but i knew that the manager was the guy that did the business. I figured i had that responsibility. We needed somebody to support the band and maybe help us get them recorded. The drummer, a guy named abbey rader, was aware of or friendly with or had some connection to artie kornfeld, who was the Vice President of capitol records. And artie was a writer, really successful writer. He wrote dead mans curve for jan and dean and a bunch of the rain and the park and a bunch of hits. And was from my neighborhood, which abbey, you know, informed me of. So when i called his office to get an appointment, i said, its michael lang. Whos michael lang . I have no idea who michael lang is. Tell him im from the neighborhood. Ok, have him come up. I went up and artie was, you know, charming and funny and we became instant friends like wed known each other all our lives. During the early part of the fall, we were talking late into the night, every night, about these ideas of producing concerts. Artie was a studio guy, not really very familiar with the rock scene and hadnt been out at concerts. So i would drag him out to see shows and get him into sort of the right frame of mind. It also had occurred to me along the way that woodstock was becoming a mecca for musicians but there was no place to record. People would have to go into the city to do their albums, and it seemed that was the perfect answer. Build a Recording Studio in woodstock. We could come and spend time in the country and record at your leisure. So we proceeded to try and put that together. So we were following these two paths and i hired a local realtor, jim young, to help me look for sites for this idea of a festival which, according to artie, sprouted one night around 2 00 in the morning. I dont remember the actual night, but at some point we decided, ok, instead of this concert series, were going to put it all together and do the biggest event anybody had ever seen. So we proceeded along those lines to try to finance these two projects. I think our target was 200,000 people, although the biggest show i had been aware of was my festival in miami and i think we had 40,000 people the first day. We picked 200,000 because we figured we were in the northeast corridor, theres lots of People Living around. If we only get 1 of 1 , wed have 200,000. That was our target. Thats sort of how we began that road. Then you guys found some partners, john roberts and joel rosenman, who became more or less the financial backers and handled some of the business end of it with oh, theres someone going to woodstock right now on that motorcycle. Found, started working on some of the business aspects of it while you were concentrating on the booking and also looking for the actual site because originally you did want to have it in woodstock. You found one area, winston farm, that wasnt available for leasing, and so you looked and looked until you found a place called wallkill. Can you guys imagine the wallkill generation . Anyway, why dont you tell us a little bit about how wallkill came about and then you segued from wallkill to white lake, bethel, max yasgur . Originally, woodstock was supposed to be in woodstock. When we couldnt be in woodstock anymore, i wanted to take the name with me because i thought it really gave everybody the idea of what we were doing in kind of a nice, concise way. But i wanted to be close to woodstock, so we looked in expanding circles from the town and found the Perfect Place to do the festival in saugerties, which was 10 miles out of town. It belonged to mr. Schaller, who was the owner of Schaller Weber meats, an old, sort of a wellknown german meatpacking company. I spoke to the caretaker. He said, yeah, it sounds interesting, and ill check. He checked, and he said, yeah, we would like to talk about it. Of course, they didnt know what they were talking about. [laughter] but it was a fee and they never used the place except for hunting. So i said, great, we have a site. We thought, you know, we would offer 5,000 and wed be off and running. In the meantime we, through an attorney that i was using, miles laurie, met with john and joel, john roberts and joel rosenman, to finance the studio idea. They were building a studio in new york called media sound, which for years was one of the premier studios in the city. So we went to meet them, and we they were very yuppieish and nothing like me and a little like artie, i guess, on the fringes. I kept my mouth shut and artie did all the talking. He talks very well. They seemed, you know, interested but not really convinced. At the end of the conversation, i think i may have mentioned this idea of doing this festival that was another project we were working on that might have some tiein to the studio. They seemed to perk up at that and asked us if wed come back talk more about it and come back with a budget. We said sure. We went away, and artie and i had been talking to a guy named larry uttal from bell records about the festival. He had called me and said he was interested in proceeding. So he called artie called john and joel back and said, im sorry, but the festival is already spoken for but wed love to continue talking about the studio. They had been bitten, so they were a little bit crushed by this news. Artie and i talked about it, and we said, well, if theyll do both projects, they both seem really nice and bright and theyre about our age and that would be kind of more fun than working with a big company so well do it with them. And thats what happened. Two weeks later, we signed a contract and started to go. I would say within three or four days of signing the contract i went back up to saugerties to try and pursue the site that mr. Schaller owned. And by then i think the District Attorney or one of the officials in Ulster County had gotten wind of what were doing and put something in the local newspaper saying, never again will we entertain an event in woodstock because they were having problems with the sound outs by then. So i guess mr. Schaller read that, and that was the end of the schaller site. So we started looking further afield for something that would fit. We needed at least 300 or 400 acres. We needed access, we needed power, we needed water, we needed actually a place where you could build a small city to support this crowd of potentially 200,000 people for three days. We werent finding it. One weekend john and joel were riding around in the catskills and saw a sign off route 17 which said, mills Industrial Site for rent. It was for rent. They went and they found it. Mills was willing to rent i think for 10,000, and they agreed on a spot. Then they called me and said, look, you know, weve agreed. We can always back out, but youve got to come and look at it. It may not be perfect. Its not exactly what youre looking for. Its not exactly what youve described. They went through this whole thing, so i knew i was in trouble. But i went up to look at it anyway and it was horrible. It was an Industrial Site and would require an immense amount of work to make it something bucolic and to give the feeling we wanted when people arrived. But it did have the advantage of being there and being rentable. It was off a throughway and it had water and power and all those other things. So we said ok. They were getting really nervous about that point. I think it was early march. So we proceeded to work there. Because they looked so straight, they were the ones that went to approach the town fathers with this idea. There were no permit requirements in those days. The only permits you really needed were Building Permits if you were putting up permanent structures. So they described what the festival was going to be. It was going to be folk and jazz and off wandering in the afternoon, maybe 20,000 or 30,000 people. [laughter] they came back to new york and said, weve got it. I said, great. And we started setting our crews up and i started, you know, i went up with i had hired by that point an amazing staff of people from all walks of life, engineers and construction people and guys who had most of the experience in the music business setting up big events. Big events were nothing like what we were planning, but at least they had some of that. And a bunch of just, you know, genius characters like chris langhart, who taught engineering, who could build anything that you could suggest to him. He would build it. So we put this Team Together and i sent them up there and we started to convert this Industrial Site into something very beautiful and interesting. As the weeks progressed, the town began to realize that, you know, how come all the people that are working here have long hair . [laughter] wheres all the jazz buffs . Acoustic guitars . None of that was happening so they found out what we were up to and got really uptight and afraid of, you know, these hordes of hippies that were going to come and overrun their town and rape their women and pillage their fields and steal their pigs. And were trying, i guess, to figure out a creative way to get us out of town. We were spending a lot of money in town, so the merchants were kind of on our side. I remember having many town meetings, where people were sort of whistling as i walked to the microphone and was able to get through to them in the beginning, but the resistance built really quite strongly to the point where they formed something called the concerned citizens committee. The ccc. That will give you some indication what they were about. [laughter] at one point, they started firing these occasional shots at our barn, which was our headquarters. So it was getting kind of intense and we started thinking, how are we going to bring people to this kind of an atmosphere . So i made sure that we didnt plant anything in the ground when we laid out the site and started putting the pieces in place. We just piled them up waiting to see what would happen. They inevitably they passed a law saying that you needed certain permits to proceed with an event for over 5000 people, and of course were not giving you those permits. On the fourteenth of july, they sent the decision down that were not issuing these permits. Youre violating our laws and you have to shut down immediately. The miracle of woodstock is, after spending all this time trying find a site and having to settle for wallkill, on the 15th, i found bethel and max yasgur and the most perfect field of my dreams, in any case. It had to be more than luck. I mean, it was just you know, it was too good to be true. A guy named elliot tiber called me and he is the subject of a movie that ang lee has just directed and produced or James Schamus produced and wrote called taking woodstock. Its coming out i think on the fourteenth of august. Its about elliot calling me and then his world changes as we descend in a helicopter it turns out. Elliot called my office when we were sort of panicking at our lawyers, trying to figure out what moves we could make, and we were right, we could have won the lawsuit. We probably would have wound up sometime around christmas and the festival would never have happened. I said lets get out and i had everybody pack and start loading trucks. And anybody who wasnt busy packing the offices and the boxes and the files i put on the telephones to call radio stations, press, and anybody they could think of to get the word out that we needed the site. Because i knew if anybody stood around for more than 30 seconds theyd get completely demoralized and that would be the end of it. That would sort of spread like wildfire through everybodys spirits. We kept everybody pumped up. I said, dont worry. Its going to work. And kept everybody moving and sure enough, the next day, elliot tiber calls my office and says i have a site. Were in bethel, i have a permit, and we want you. I left the Lawyers Office and grabbed ticia, who i think is sitting in the back of the room right now, who was my assistant. Say hello, ticia. And up we went. I called two guys on my staff and had them meet me at this motel. We met elliot tiber, who was this affable guy around 30 who it turns out grew up around the corner from my sister and i in brooklyn and was all smiles and said, come on. Ill show you the site. So we take a walk behind this motel called the el monaco, which was hard to describe. It was the most derelict place i had ever seen that was still open. [laughter] and it was barely open. So we take a walk down behind the motel and to this field. It was traisping down the hill and suddenly i notice that my ankles are getting wet. Its up to my knees. Finally, i said, hold on, elliot. Where are we going . Where is this . How far do we have to go . He said, youre in the middle of it. Swamp of dreams. It was a swamp. I almost killed him on the spot. I calmed everyone down. On the way up, we were passing these beautiful farms. Is there somebody who can show us something around . Ticia and i and i and a guy named Maurice Abraham the same group of people in , florida, picked us up and took us around. We went down at 17 and came over the hill. Before us. S i stopped the car. This is it. That was when the miracle happened. We all got out of the car, looked at each other, and tried not to flow out of the ground too far. T was a local named max yasgur max was the leading businessperson in the community. He was totally right wing. He was behind the war in vietnam. He was that kind of person. So he said his farm is 2,000 acres. I said he is our guy. We went over to his house and knocked on his door. He came out. We told him what we had in mind. Everybody knew what was going on with woodstock. Max and i took a ride back with ticia to this initial field. Ticiad tricia i asked to keep Maurice Abraham busy. Max and i went into the field. Then we were off and running. There are some nice stories like this in the book. In addition to dealing with these, michael is having to put out fires with the new york city office. With think the underground, counterculture people would be together on this, but there was strife and factions and people demanding money. A great concert promoter in new york not thinking he liked the idea of this whippersnapper coming along and starting this festival and booking all these bands that usually played his venues. Things travele, along until there are three weeks to go for them to put together this massive site, basically a city. I do not know how many people live in the area, but if you think about how jun was i think it rained where we live 27 out of 30 days. That was the weather conditions in that three weeks they had to put together the stage, the lighting, the campground, and all the infrastructure that they needed. Somehow, they did it. 24 7 for everybody. By that time we had grown to probably 300 or 400 people working on site. What should have been four months in 30 days. 23 of those days were rain. But we did. It was not just us. We had the help of the local Power Company and telephone company. All of the Utility Companies pitched in and helped us tremendously. They worked through every day and every night to bring power and telephone from eight miles away. We were basically constructing this city. That means water all over the site. Patch washe initial 100 acres. Had a waylets and we to service those toilets and food. We had figured woodstock from the beginning as an event that would be welcoming for anybody who wanted to come. I had spent that year going to every other show in america just about, from small festivals to concerts. At lots ofdeterrents them. Gate crashing was a big problem. There were confrontations with the police. I wanted to eliminate any kind to those confrontations. When we designed it, it was designed to welcome anybody who came that had a ticket worth they did not have a ticket. It was a free campground, free stages. If you cannot afford food, we had free kitchens. We wanted to make sure anybody that wanted to be there could be there. There would be there. This is a gathering of friends from everywhere. Proceeded based on that principle of everything being welcoming. We brought in a group called the hog farm. They were commune used to setting up the outdoor facilities. Outdoor kitchens. Organic, its probably the first time anybody had seen granola. That, in terms of , they had a vibe of welcoming everybody getting them situated and then getting them understand its their job to get them situated and that started this whole idea of sharing responsibility and we were all in this together. In a great way. We help each other with whatever we have. Plus the fact there wasnt any sort of outside anything. Had most tobly what do with the success. And everything had to stretch. Same kind of philosophy applied with musicians as they started arriving. The biggest star of woodstock was the audience. When the musician started coming and seeing the gathering of people and how people where following that vibe with everyone helping each other that they were willing to make compromises from the usual things they needed. Ricky havens was the first act up. I finally convinced him to go on. The bands were there for the same reason everyone else was there. The feeling in the audience. From theing stretched site to the town to the parking lot that stretched. It was the same feeling and everybody had this. Where you were, you were ok. You were enjoying yourself. This ande a part of that stretched to the bands for the most part. There were a couple exceptions. Pete townsend of the who didnt want to be there, didnt like being there. He did play an amazing sack. Else, wech everyone were delayed by rain and traffic, everything. We were running hours and hours late and everybody just did their best. They werent always ready for us but some people got into that the wrong time. [laughter] they were just wonderful. And as much as part of the family as everyone else. Just to wrap up, why dont you finish up by telling about after the festival was over, the partnership splintered and you were no longer part of the wood shot Woodstock Ventures team, but still the effect of woodstock on you in your future endeavors and traveling around and people you would meet who had seen the film and knew about woodstock and what that was like. I was in the film so was hard to get away. I didnt want to be trapped. But i get recognized a lot. Ive traveled all over the world and people would come up to me, recognize me, you look like the guy. Woodstock change their lives even if they werent there. Have aed to lifechanging effect on everybody. I know it did on me and all the people there. Washe take away from that very positive outlook on life and on the possibility of maybe things can work out. I think that is how it is probably in my mind most are medically. Thanks. We have time for about five or six questions. To form a line and stand right here. Dont be shy feel the question. One was im assuming the whole festival mightve been filmed and they trimmed it down to make the movie. , realizing the case how incredible it could be. If thats found and put in. , i heard theestion dead show was horrible. I thought maybe you could help with those things. The dvd of the film has a lot of really new footage. And its remastered and remixed. The dead did have a horrible time. On stage. They had a great time offstage. [laughter] it had to do with why they had a horrible time offstage. [laughter] he was famous for two things. He was also famous for being a producer of lsd. So before the grateful dead took the stage he decided to rewire everything. I dont know if any of you have ever been to steeplechase and if you have you will remember getting off the horse race going through this tunnel and having. His horrible little clown it was kinda like that. They grabbed it and tried to play accord, they had a horrible time. Turns out they didnt play as badly as they thought. Also the other cool thing rhino was putting out for the first time ever, you will be able to actually hear every single artist that performed woodstock including bands youve never heard of like sweetwater, everybody at least one track and it will be chronological in the order they performed because the films make a great film that it is completely out of sequence, so check it out. I have two quick questions. Why does woodstock make such a resonance in the culture of today since 1969 . I tried to get john lennon to come and he wanted to come but he couldnt get into the country. He had a very strong antiwar stance and our government is not cool with having him around. Ive been corresponding with in and it turns out the time i had lost the site that sent me a correspondence, we didnt have email in those days, so letters. They sent a letter that said instead of sending john who would like to send an installation of bands, james taylor and billy preston. All of which wouldve been incredible. But because of the chaos i never saw the letter. We couldve had the singersongwriter move meant movement started in 1969 instead of waiting till 1971. To vermont. R coming wifehe past 25 years, my and myself have traveled around the country introducing your Amazing Program to all of the original artists that played woodstock and 69. Its been a fascinating road but it wouldnt have happened if it wasnt for this beautiful printing and great graphics of the 60s so i was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the history of the program a it relates to the farm and little bit about the graphics itself and of course im good to ask you to participate in the program before you leave today. Thank you. The program that was given out at the start. Yes. It is an amazing piece of memorabilia. With the poetry in the lyrics. ,he interesting thing is someone at night last night said they were at woodstock and on the way out they found a carton of the programs and took one because actually they didnt show up until sunday. They had trucks bringing the programs there were going to be distributive for free were stuck in that traffic jam along with another Million People or so so many of the people that attended never even got to see the program. Foreman was very wellconnected. [laughter] they did a very good job putting the book together but not a great job of getting it there. [laughter] putting the book together but not i think you can also see, jeff beck is listed in there and iron butterfly. Rod stewart quick quit the Jeff Beck Group so they couldnt play because they didnt have a lead singer anymore. They called the day before and by that time we were so busy i said leave them there. [laughter] i think they really wish they had been there. Thank you. Was there a specific moment during the three days when you realized this is historic, its not just a Music Festival . I think we realized that the first day. When you look at that crowd. That was historic in itself. What did it mean, of course not. But yeah, it was beyond anybodys imagination. Here comes another question. Have you been able to do anything since then that has given you the same kind of satisfaction . Yes, many things. Such as . [laughter] kids. Kids. [laughter] anybody else . And, youhe business put these people together, all the bands and everything you got paid some. At the end of it we had about way 500 people working. Filled we sold 126,000 tickets in advance and we were in a million or so in debt. Mean john roberts because was his money and his family came in and sort of took over, they thought he was an idiot for getting involved in the first place. His father was a miserable character actually. And john died a few years ago and once he made the commitment, he saw it through. So after the festival we had a the bankith the bank had sorta financed unwittingly the weekend. And wanted to make sure they would be covered. We were not mature enough to handle things. They read odds with each other. We reckon in a buy them out and they were gonna buy us out